Personal Narrative: My Child

“Your daughter has nine fingers and ten toes”, those were the words my mother heard to describe her first and only child moments after giving birth. The doctors informed my mother that I was a healthy baby, although I was born with, four fingers on my left hand and a slightly deformed left arm. It took my mother months to analyze and process this information about her newborn, she finally concluded that she would focus on her baby’s health and life would be good for her nine fingered baby girl.

Because of this decision I grew up thinking I was no different from any other child. I played recreation league soccer and shined at goalie even with my left arm being 2 inches shorter than the other, I was an even better at bat in softball. I thought maybe my arm made me better than the other kids. From kindergarten to second grade, the children didn’t seem to notice my missing finger, life was good for me. That was until third grade and then they noticed. First the teasing started with nicknames like alien hand,

I read so many books on various subjects, which opened my world to so many possibilities. Books took me around the world, I did not feel lonely, I began to accept my difference, and I decided to pursue some of the hobbies that I read about. I ask my mother for piano lessons and she obliged. Learning to play piano was frustrating; reading sheet music was boring, and adjusting my nine finger left hand and short arm to fingering the keys was often times uncomfortable. Nonetheless, by fifth grade I became pretty good at playing piano and even better at reading sheet music. During this time also asked for and began karate lessons, which I loved. These typical childhood activities that I decided to undertake in spite of my deformity gave me confidence. Confidence that is self-earned is extremely motivating, I began to break out of my partially self-imposed